“…but at base the school hopes to initiate what it calls “authentic” conversations about race, which researchers suggest may actually have been inhibited by liberal values for decades. Under the spell of color-blindness, previous generations have tended to avoid race as a subject, hushing their children when they refer to playground playmates as “brown,” believing that by not acknowledging race in public they were enacting a desire for equality for all. In fact, in the academic literature, “color-blindness” now refers to the reluctance to address race, not the ideal of casual intermingling.

For advocates of a new approach, that reluctance can be devastating — a refusal to acknowledge the full humanity of others.”

I am at a lost for words to describe how it feels to hear the decision of juries for the Mike Brown and Eric Garner cases. Hurt, anger, fear, shame, sadness, indifference and grief all at the same time. This is some traumatic kind of living.

“For his part, director Spike Lee took the video of the incident, which went viral, and intercut scenes of Radio Raheem’s death sequence in his seminal 1989 film, “Do The Right Thing,” essentially holding up a mirror to reality, emphasizing how much his art seemingly imitates (or maybe I should say, reflects) real life – still, some 25 years later, since that film’s releaseway.”

“DWYL is, in fact, the most perfect ideological tool of capitalism. It shunts aside the labor of others and disguises our own labor to ourselves. It hides the fact that if we acknowledged all of our work as work, we could set appropriate limits for it, demanding fair compensation and humane schedules that allow for family and leisure time.”

And, now that 2014 has arrived, I’m faced with the dilemma of making new resolutions or continuing to work on the ones I made last year. Some bloggers make it a requisite to make new years resolutions. That’s what works for them. But I’ve realized that grandiose resolutions don’t work for me. Instead, I am better at assessing what worked, what could have been done better and then proceeding to make ongoing change. In short, resolutions are too static and don’t allow for the dynamism of real life.

New York Times photographer, Ruth Fremson’s, photo of Hada making a face in a stairwell.

I finally finished reading and watching, Invisible Child: Dasani’s Homeless Life. It is the largest multimedia investigative endeavor that the The New York Times has undertaken. So, I am wondering how much it cost to produce this bit of journalism?

Andrea Elliott did a superb job at capturing the complex life Dani and her family lead. For many parts of the article, as a reader I felt like I was right there with them. Despite, Elliott’s journalistic capabilities, the article was really difficult to read. The feelings it stirred inside left me haunted and disturbed for a few hours. Of course, it doesn’t compare to the suffering that Dani and her family endure, but nonetheless I am human and empathize with them.

Scratch that, the 5-part series left me with a deep pang of sadness inside. If I can feel like this, how did the writer and photographer feel throughout the 15-month period of creating this piece?

Seeing a person in need moves me. Sometimes I feel anger. But, the more I evaluate what feelings this investigation aroused, I discover frustration and dose of annoyance. As Ruth Fremson, the staff photographer so eloquently wrote, “I wonder what it says about our society that in one of the wealthiest cities, in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, the city’s own sanctuary provides shredded, rotting mattresses for children.”